


Natural

by LittleLinor



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: Chrono Shindou never asked much from life, and to his surprise, life gave him a family, a good job, and reliable friends. It'd be perfect if it wasn't for the stalking.
Relationships: Anjou Tokoha & Kiba Shion & Shindou Chrono
Comments: 15
Kudos: 23





	Natural

**Author's Note:**

> So the mystery prompt for this try3 request turned out to be "age swap," which at first left me stumped because how do I age swap them when they're all the same age, right?  
> But then I had a galaxy brain moment.
> 
> Enjoy :3c

Your name is Chrono Shindou. You’re 22, healthy, surprisingly well established as the newly promoted owner and chef of your own little restaurant, and you wish, not for the first time, that your two best friends’ chemistry did not come out at its best when it comes to teasing you.  
“Shion,” Tokoha says, hiding her grin behind her glass, “you should lend him a bodyguard or two.”  
“Believe it or not, I already offered. But I suppose he can defend himself with that knife.”  
“I thought you two came here to _help_ me, not giggle like we’re still in middle school,” you grumble, putting a smoking plate down in front of each of them. It’s late at night, the rest of your customers already gone or about to, and you’re not about to give your single waitress extra work when she’s already dealing with clearing away the rest of the dishes for the evening.  
Besides, this is the closest equivalent you have to “inviting your friends over for dinner,” in no small part because you still live with your aunt and inviting more than one person at a time always makes you feel like you’re crowding her space.  
If she was away, it’d be a different issue. But she’s actually here this week, something you would probably enjoy more if it wasn’t for this little stalking business.  
“Let’s be real, though,” Tokoha says, still grinning, as you take a seat next to her. “What are the chances that it _isn’t_ someone who’s been trying to confess to you since high school and that you’ve never noticed?”  
“Listen, that was _one_ time and I’m not that blind. And why would they give me cards instead of, like, a letter or something?”  
“Maybe they’re hoping to trigger a romantic first encounter? They could be waiting at the shop,” she adds in her most dramatic, emotional voice, “each day wondering if this will finally be the day you will walk in and ask them for a fight…”  
“… I hope you know that’s even _more_ creepy,” you sigh, and she giggles and picks up her spoon, digging into her curry.  
“Speaking of cards,” Shion says. “I talked to my contacts at the Association; as far as they’re aware, there were no plans to release a new clan or anything of the sort. But I scanned the card you gave me, and it does seem to be legit. Gear Chronicle is a legit clan, apparently. Even though none of us have heard about it.” He hands you the card back. “You know, we tease you about it, but I was being serious with my offer. If you feel unsafe, or worry about your aunt, I can hire someone to keep an eye out—at least to stake out the building, just to be sure.”  
“And have _two_ people watching my every move instead of one? Thanks but no thanks. I’ll deal with it.” You sigh, slumping on the table a little. Tokoha reaches with her free hand to pat your back lightly. “… you know, I’ve been thinking, maybe I _should_ play the damn cards.”  
“Oh? A reversal at _this_ point in time? You’ve never picked it up in all the years you’ve seen us play, why change your mind now?”  
“Well…” You hesitate. It’s something you’ve never been _that_ open about, partly because you didn’t want to make them feel bad for something they’re so passionate about, and partly because you never got a _full_ story yourself and didn’t want to force Mikuru to tell you more. “I told you guys what happened with my Dad, right?”  
“You said his death was linked to Vanguard somehow,” Tokoha says, unusually careful, “but you never did give us the details…”  
“I researched it,” Shion says. “What? What else did you want me to do? What if it had been _important_?”  
“… I really shouldn’t have expected anything else,” you sigh. “What did you find out? Knowing you, you might know more than I do.”  
“Not as much as I’d have liked, which is suspicious in itself, considering my sources. Rive Shindou disappeared sixteen years ago, as you know. What did your aunt tell you? That he was doing something Vanguard related?”  
“Yeah. She said not long before he disappeared he started being away from home all the time and ranting about how they had a big project, and then there was an accident and he disappeared.”  
He nods.  
“That sounds about right. What I discovered after a lot of digging was that he wasn’t just a Vanguard champion. There aren’t many records of the time, but it seems he was part of the team that built the Association. The original founders.”  
“ _What_?!” Tokoha cries out. “But I’d never heard of him until I met Chrono. And I’ve _worked_ for the Association.”  
“He’s not one of the official founders because he disappeared a few months before the Association was founded in its current form. Before, it was just an unofficial club.” He takes a sip of his glass, pensive—or, knowing him, possibly pausing for dramatic effect. “But he was part of the team Ryuzu Myoujin put together to research Vanguard and its bond with Cray.”  
“You _believe_ that stuff about Cray being real?”  
“Don’t you?”  
She pauses, her momentum broken.  
“… I don’t know,” she whispers. “Sometimes it almost feels like it is… But that’s just imagination, right? To fight well, you have to really picture yourself on Cray, and…”  
She falls silent. By now, the two remaining customers have made their way out, and from the small kitchen, the noise of the industrial dishwasher spreads in a low hum into the restaurant proper.  
“Whether it’s true or not,” Shion says, “Myoujin and his friends definitely believed in it. But an accident happened at the lab they were working in, and that research was cut short.”  
“… that’s when my Dad disappeared?”  
“Yes. Everyone else was rescued from the broken building, but they never found your father.”  
“ _Broken building?_ ” Tokoha hisses. “What the hell were they _doing_ in there to have an ‘accident’ on that scale. Actually, while we’re there,” she adds, turning fully to Shion with a frown, “you’re telling us all this _now_? How long have you known?”  
“After high school. Look, I didn’t think it was actually relevant, I wasn’t going to stroll in and tell Chrono ‘oh yes, by the way, I researched your father’s death in detail’? But that was in a different context… ‘Chrono’s father worked with the founder of the Association until he died’ is one thing. ‘Chrono’s father died in suspicious circumstances while working with the founder of the Association, and now Chrono, who doesn’t play Vanguard, is finding cards from a mysterious clan that so happen to share his name’ is a whole different thing, you know what I mean?”  
“You think it’s related to that research?”  
“I don’t know. But if it’s not, then it’s quite the coincidence.”  
“… yeah.” She turns towards you. “Chrono? You’ve been awfully silent. Are you okay?”  
“… yeah, I’m fine.” You turn the card around and around in your hands, staring at it. Chronojet Dragon. The more you look at it, the more it feels like it’s calling you. And that’s terrifying. “Wish I knew who’s giving me these. I have some _questions_.”  
“So what’s making you think of playing them?”  
“… it’s just a feeling. Like… like somehow, the answers are in the cards themselves. Maybe if I play them…” You sigh. “It’s crazy, I know.”  
“Maybe not,” Shion says. “If they spent all that time and money researching it, then surely there’s some truth to those Cray theories. And besides…”  
He pauses.  
“… yes?”  
“Whoever’s getting him these might show up if he plays, is that what you were thinking?”  
“Precisely. We could bait them into the open… but they might be one step ahead of us. And who knows whether their intentions are good or not?”  
“If they’re not,” you say, “I’d rather find sooner than later. ...I’m gonna do it.”  
Tokoha claps her hands together.  
“So we get to teach you?” she asks, delighted.  
“I should record it for posterity,” Shion says.  
“Do that, and I’ll release the pictures I have of you in a maid outfit.”  
“… Chrono, that’s _such_ a weak threat. Surely you’ve got better dirt on me than that.”

When you finally leave together, some time later, everything at the shop appears normal.  
Good. As you expected, whoever it is doesn’t want to risk the cards getting into the wrong hands. And places to get them to you safely and undetected are getting more and more rare.  
You might not be an academic genius, but years of taking care of yourself, learning from your aunt, and interacting with Shion Kiba have taught you a few things. And you intend to get an answer to your questions.

The shop where Shion and Tokoha used to meet up is a modestly sized but modernly furnished, lively shop on the first floor of a building not too far from your old middle school. Since then, both of them have moved on to greener pastures, Tokoha playing mostly pro and Shion having kept the game as a private hobby after a short-lived but explosive career in the school tournament circuit (you hear some of those rich people have some of those digital tables at _home_ ), but you’ve spent enough hours hanging out with them there when you were a teenager that you don’t feel _too_ out of place as you put down your deck on the table for the first time.  
“Did you take out your first vanguard?” Shion asks, leaning over your shoulder.  
“How many times do you think I’ve watched you guys play?” you sigh. Your first hand gives you three grade ones, one grade two and one grade three, and you decide that it’s good enough. No point in pushing your luck. It’s not like you know anything about balance anyway.  
“A _hem_ ,” Tokoha says, waiting with her own hand ready. “I think _I_ ’m the one teaching him, Shion.”  
“I’m not allowed to help him?”  
“He’s a big boy, he can handle it. Chrono, are you ready?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Now… Picture it. You are on the planet Cray.”  
“… do we _really_ have to do all the ‘picture it’ stuff?”  
“Yes,” they answer in unison.  
You sigh and close your eyes. It feels a bit silly, but it also unsettles you, for a reason you can’t quite place.  
Maybe it’s because your feelings on the game itself are still so conflicted. Mikuru had cut all her ties with your father’s Vanguard friends after the accident, and now that you know more, you understand why. Not just because of the accident itself, but because as you’ve grown up, you’ve started piecing together a picture of what your father had been like in the years before his death, and it isn’t pretty. It angers you, more for Mikuru’s sake than your own. She’d been younger than _you_ are when she finally won her uphill battle to take you in her custody, and despite having been an adult in name for two years now, you still feel like you have none of your life under control.  
And back when he was still there, alive but constantly busy, constantly preoccupied, with tournaments, with his friends, with his _big project_ that eventually took his life, she had been a mere teen.  
She deserved so much better, and fought to give _you_ better, and although you’d like to think that you wouldn’t close yourself to the world and your family just because you started enjoying a game, the precedent still makes you uneasy. You don’t want to become your father.  
_You’re overthinking it_ , you tell yourself. _Tokoha is as Into Vanguard as they get, and she still makes time for her little brother all the time. She and Shion stayed friends with you for years even though you didn’t play. It’ll be fine._  
“Chrono?”  
You blink.  
“.. sorry. I got distracted.”  
She huffs.  
“I swear. Let’s try again.”  
“… yeah.”  
You close your eyes, and this time, you follow her voice, letting it guide you. It’s surprisingly easy, although that doesn’t make it any less unsettling.  
_Planet Cray…_  
You breathe. Around you, in your mind, the shop and its sounds start to fade, only Tokoha’s voice still murmuring in your ear. A gigantic temple takes shape, its still, silent air filled with a strange, echoing sense of loss.  
Opposite you, on the cracked stones, Tokoha’s own whispy shape takes form, and in the silent stillness of the temple, it feels like you’re closer to her than ever before, like you’ve touched something _intimate_ that was until now unseen.  
And maybe you understand why people get hooked on this game. On this image. GIRS is impressive, but for all its realism, it has nothing on _this_ , this raw meeting of imaginations.  
“… you can feel it, right?” she asks, quietly. “The way we show our true selves in the fight.”  
“… yeah.” You swallow. You can feel it, and it feels vertiginous.  
It’s something you’d always noticed, on some level, the way people’s playstyles told a lot about them, but now you can _feel_ it, and it terrifies you.  
And pulls you in even more.  
She smiles.  
“Now… we borrow the shape of the units who will fight with us. Stand up!”  
You open your eyes, and reach for the card to turn it over, and although you can see the board in front of you now, your mind hasn’t left the temple, or the small girl adorned with flowers standing in front of you.

You fight.  
With the amount of times you’ve watched them play, you know the rules well, and have some notions of strategy, although you can _feel_ Shion rolling his eyes at some of your choices. Telling him that he doesn’t have to stand behind you and watch your cards and terrible choices unfortunately does nothing.  
Tokoha rides to grade three. You knows she hasn’t been as aggressive from the start as she would normally be, taking her time to take you through the basic moves just in case, but by now she’s playing in earnest, and it shows. You can barely guard her attacks, which, in retrospect, is probably why Shion was judging how forward you were being earlier. But you’re not going to get angry about that. Tokoha is a _world class player_ and honestly it’s a miracle she hasn’t beaten you into the ground in this turn alone.  
She smiles happily at you and your almost empty field, and you glare at the two cards in your hands, desperately trying to put together a semblance of an offense. She doesn’t have any perfect guards in her hand that you know of, but she might simply have drawn one, and you’re not good enough at counting cards to know. And, more importantly, if you don’t somehow take her down this turn, you’re done for. You’re at five damage already, with little chance until now to use any of it for anything useful, and her field is full. Even if you used up your attacks to empty it, she could just destroy you with her vanguard on her next turn. Plus, you might not know the _details_ , but you know that when Tokoha starts calling things, shit gets real _very_ fast.  
No, there’s no point in trying to catch up. You’ll have to take a risk, to win now even at the cost all of your resources. Anything else will end in defeat.  
“Don’t think too hard,” she chuckles. “It’s only a training fight. You’ll get used to it.”  
“What, you want me to _not_ fight you seriously?”  
She laughs.  
“Okay, when you put it like that. Do your worst,” she says with a wink.  
You take a deep breath, stand, and draw.  
Chronojet dragon.  
You haven’t even called him, but in the suspended silence of the temple, it’s like he’s come to your side, supporting you. Like he’s answered your call, when he felt you fighting.  
You look at the three cards in your hand. Two Chronojets, waiting, and one grade one that you tried to save because it could maybe allow you to stride.  
And suddenly it’s the temple itself that seems to call you.  
Something resonates, almost silent at first, but brushing against your senses like a breeze. The stillness rouses. Time comes to life. Blinking, the Tokoha who wears Ahsha’s clothes turns her head slightly as a draft picks up strands of her hair.  
And you feel, suddenly, like something that’s been at a standstill inside you for as long as you can remember clicks, and finally starts moving. Ticking away louder. Louder.  
You look at the statue behind her, and you know what you need to do.  
“I ride… Chronojet Dragon.”  
The wind of time fills you, and you stand, opposite her, jets ready to fire, and all your apprehension is gone. You know what you need to do.  
A gamble. A prayer to the chaos of the world. A decision to move forward, no matter what.  
You drop your grade one card.  
“Generation Zone! Release!”  
Your body changes again as your hand moves almost on its own and lays Mystery Flare on top of your vanguard.  
“Stride Skill!” With one gesture, one of her front line rear guards is sent back through time, returned to her deck. She’s frowning now, a little, and looking at the cards in her hand.  
“Call!”  
In front of your single remaining rear guard, you call your other Chronojet.  
“… you really are going to try it, huh?” she breathes. “I can’t believe this.”  
He’s standing next to you now. And it feels like it was always meant to be. Like you’ve always been comrades in arms. Like you just didn’t know he’d been waiting for you, but slipped back into it as easily and naturally as a fish returning to water, as time advancing without pause or care.  
You’re not alone.  
“Chronojet attacks your rear guard!”  
Her mouth twists in an almost-pout of frustration.  
“No guard.”  
“Mystery Flare attacks your vanguard!”  
She stares at her hand, then drops three of her four cards on the guard circle.  
“Guard. Two triggers to pass.”  
You reach for your deck, and shoot towards her, time slowly holding its breath.  
“Stand trigger! Chronojet stands… power to Mystery Flare!”  
Behind you, in the small card shop, someone covers a laugh with their hand. But you barely register it.  
Your second check is a grade two. The third…  
“Critical trigger!”  
Tokoha closes her eyes.  
“All effects to Mystery Flare!”  
You hit, and time holds its breath.  
Grade two. Grade three. Grade one.  
You draw your last card, and Uluru smiles at you, serene.  
“Are you _kidding_ me?”  
Time stands still. Chronojet attacks, and she draws a trigger, but although she does heal, the power it gives her vanishes as time trickles backwards, picks up speed, as your turn comes anew. Somewhere, very far away, you laugh. Time flows through your veins.  
“Stand and draw!”  
Another friend appears at your side as time resumes its flow, and you attack, again.

When you blink yourself back into focus, Tokoha is putting down her sixth damage, and watching you very, very quietly, her eyes unusually serious.  
You realise, suddenly, that you’re breathless.  
“… well,” Shion says after several long moments of silence.  
“It’s not just me, right?” Tokoha says, her usual chatty exterior cracking just enough to reveal a hint of nervous awe.  
“No it’s not. This can’t be a coincidence.”  
“What—” You take a second to catch your breath. “What are you two talking about?”  
“Why you can visualise things so intensely that you dragged two experienced players into your image even though this is your first time playing,” Shion says, walking up to your side.  
“Wait, I did?”  
“You didn’t notice?”  
“I, uh… I got a little carried away. Didn’t pay attention.”  
“That’s not all there is to it,” Tokoha says. “Did you notice how he stopped _thinking_ about his moves? Up until that turn he was checking everything three times, and then…” She sighs. “Anyway. I hope you know the probability of that stunt working was ridiculousy low and I should’ve destroyed you the next turn,” she says, recovering her usual attitude and putting her hands on her hips. “That kind of move won’t carry you through a tournament.”  
“I know,” you tell her. “But look—what was the probability of me winning if I _didn’t_ do it?”  
“… zero,” she admits with a smile. “It was good playing.”  
“You only have yourself to blame for giving him that much counterblast, anyway,” Shion says, looking down at her with a smile. “You’ve seen his G unit, you know how much it costs. If he hadn’t had the resources to get rid of your intercept—”  
“Yes, I know how it works, thank you! It’s not my fault I got a critical!”  
You watch them bicker, and smile. It feels safe, being there with them.  
But somewhere in your core, you’re still high on the fight, some part of you resonating with it. And deeper even inside your mind, something is crying that you shouldn’t, that it’s dangerous, that you’re not supposed to feel this, not supposed to know this, not supposed to re—  
“Well, anyway,” Shion says, clapping your shoulder in a shockingly light way that reminds you more of the Shion who does politics than the Shion who almost blackmailed an entire school council into allowing you exceptional access to the school kitchens for your festival exhibit, “you’re a natural. Congratulations!”  
“Thanks.” You try to smile, but something is still eating at you. “… it’s not normal, is it? To get that into it? Especially on a first fight…”  
“You’re not exactly a normal beginner,” Tokoha says. “You’ve been with us for _years_. And by the sound of it, you were playing when you were tiny.”  
_Is this what it was like for him?_ you can’t help but wonder. _Is this why he lost sight of everything else?_  
Tokoha puts her own hand on your shoulder, and her hold is firm and secure.  
“Chrono. You’re you. And I know no amount of excitement would ever make you lose sight of people you care about.” She rolls her eyes. “In fact, if it happens, I’ll just have to tie the clone who clearly replaced you up and go hunt down the real you to give you a talking to for getting kidnapped.”  
You can’t help it. The snicker you tried to hold back turns into a real laugh, taking your breath away again. She grins.  
“Come on… we’ll walk you part of the way there.”  
“Right,” you say, checking the time. You still have a little time left before you have to prepare for opening, but you’d rather not cut it close.  
You gather your cards back, and put your deck inside your pocket.

“It’s true! I told you it’s true!”  
“Listen. There’s no such thing as—”  
“But I saw it!”  
You walk down the stairs out of the shop, only to find Tokoha’s little brother trying to herd two excited children towards the shop.  
“Aren’t you a Kagero player?” the older boy asks, sounding downright offended. “You don’t _believe in dragons_?”  
“I don’t believe in dragons _coming out of the sky in the middle of Tokyo_ —oh… Big Sis…”  
She waves at him.  
“Hard at work, I see. Babysitting again?”  
He hides a sigh, but not well enough.  
“I’m supposed to get them ready for the shop tournament and bring them home after…”  
“Hope the points are worth it,” she says, repressing a laugh of her own. “Well, good luck. We’ve got places to be. I’ll see you tonight?”  
“… yes,” he says, looking a little relieved.  
You move aside and let him climb the stairs with his two still-arguing wards, and start walking towards the corner of the neighborhood your restaurant is in.  
“He’s got it rough,” you say, once you’re out of sight.  
Mamoru is fairly good with children for someone his age, a fact that never ceases to amuse Tokoha, who compares the two of you every chance she gets even though he honestly takes a lot from _her_ , but there’s only so much a high schooler can do, and the kid seems to have decided that his goal in life is to be even more of an overachiever than his sister.  
“He’s got a lot to live up to,” Tokoha sighs. “I think he wants to take the Clan Leader test, too.”  
“Isn’t it a bit early?” Shion asks.  
“He wants to be the youngest, I think. Well, I can’t exactly criticise him for it, considering…”  
“Yeah, you can’t call anyone out on being ambitious, Miss Champion,” you chuckle.  
“I think stubborness and ambition run in the family,” Shion says.  
“And you think _you_ of all people get to say this about anyone?!”

You part ways halfway through the trip, and head to work, and although you smiled at them as they left, you know you can’t be satisfied with half-truths anymore. No matter how much they tried to reassure you, you need answers. Because something deep inside you is trying to break free, and something else is holding it down with a strength you didn’t know your own mind could have.

That night, as you do your usual round of the kitchen, change into your civilian clothes, and pick up your personal belongings before heading out, a dark figure crosses the deserted street and approaches the front door, an envelope in hand.  
He balances it on the handle, where you’re sure to see it on your way out, and turns, only to run right into you as you exit the hiding place you’d quietly slid to from the back door over five minutes ago, leaving your kitchen light on.  
He’s fast. But unfortunately for him, you’re faster.  
A few steps of attempted running, and you’ve caught him by the back of his coat collar, and although he tries to twist out of your grasp and throw you, you’ve done enough fighting in your school years to keep your weight low and trip him instead.  
He falls on his back. Panting, you set a foot down on his chest as warning, taking in his face properly for the first time.  
In the faint light of the moon and the distant streetlights, his pale, thin face looks almost ghostly, the sharp shadows carving it into a skeletal mask around his angry bright red eyes.  
From his height, you’d expected an adult. But the youth and vulnerability in his face knocks the breath out of you.  
You’ve met kids like him before. Those who stayed at the orphanage past the age where most of them would hope to be taken in, those who arrived there in circumstances more revolting than tragic, those whose greatest defense against the world was anger, anger enough to coat the rawness of their skin, of their heart. Enough to coat the fear. Enough to never cry again.  
It’s anger that he projects at you now, for having bested him, but for something else too, something deeper than you can’t understand yet.  
But you intend to.  
“… didn’t they teach you stalking is a bad hobby?” you ask him, more gentle than you’d planned to.  
He almost snarls at you, but then looks aside, face silent and closed off. You sigh.  
Bending down, you grab his shoulder before removing your foot and pulling him up.  
“Before you think of running,” you tell him, “I’ll remind you that one of my friends is _very_ good at finding people. You’ve been following me; you know who I mean and what he can do. I’m here because I wanted to talk to you _before_ he decides to take things into his own hands without asking.”  
He glares at you, but doesn’t try to run away. Well. This isn’t what people usually mean when they say you’re good with kids, but it’ll have to do.  
You pull him inside, and sit him at one of the tables. The ease with which you do it is honestly frightening.  
“What topping?” you ask him as you head back into the kitchen.  
“… _what?_ ”  
“What topping? On your curry.”  
“What are you _talking_ about?”  
“You look like you’re about to keel over. So, you’re going to _eat_. A _proper_ meal.” He stares up at you, and you smile. “And then, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on.”

**Author's Note:**

> I missed writing try3 shenanigans so much oh my god, anyway tell me what you think the Deep Lore regarding their meeting is in this universe because I tried to leave hints but I wish I'd had the room to actually talk about it in detail.


End file.
